


Kivrin: Homecoming (Doomsday Book Choose-Your-Own-Adventure)

by lirin



Category: Oxford Time Travel Universe - Connie Willis
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, Gen, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 18:13:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 2,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lirin/pseuds/lirin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are Kivrin Engle, a young historian recently retrieved from the Middle Ages. How will you react upon returning to the 21st century?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [drayton](https://archiveofourown.org/users/drayton/gifts).



You are Kivrin Engle, a young historian studying the Middle Ages. You have seen more death in the past week than you had in your whole life up to that point. Something had gone wrong with your drop, because you ended up almost three decades away from your intended destination. For a long time, you wondered if you were going to be left permanently in the past, but then Mr. Dunworthy came, with a horse and a boy. You knew he would come.

It is terribly loud when the drop opens. There are bells ringing. It seems so unfair that this world should have so many bells ringing when so many people died with nobody to ring a bell for them in the world you came from. People are yelling, too, you realize. Something about authorization and hospital and your translator is overloaded and it’s all too much for you. Do any of these people even know that Father Roche is dead? And Agnes, and Rosemund, and all the others.

 

_If you start yelling in distress yourself,[go to chapter 2](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721502).  
Colin seemed clever. Perhaps he can help you. If you try to get his attention, [go to chapter 3](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721544)._


	2. Chapter 2

“What eileth ȝow?” you exclaim, but nobody seems to understand you. It interrupts their argument, though, and everyone turns and looks at you. You look back at them, but don’t say anything. What is there to say?

“Can we find a private room for Miss Engle?” Mr. Dunworthy says finally. “She needs to rest.”

“She’s not the only one,” a man says, and leads you both away from the laboratory. The room he takes you to is in one of the dormitories: small, but cozy.

You look at your hand. The corder is still there. “Io suuicien lui damo amo,” you murmur as you sit down on the bed.

“Kivrin, are you going to be all right?” Mr. Dunworthy asks.

How can he expect you to be all right when everyone is dead? They’re not lost completely though, not while you have the corder. That’s important. “It’s all here,” you tell Mr. Dunworthy.

You’re not sure Mr. Dunworthy understood. He gazes at you without speaking. He looks as tired as you feel.

 

_If you give up and go to sleep,[go to chapter 5](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721613).  
If you decide to try further to explain yourself to Mr. Dunworthy, [go to chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721565)._


	3. Chapter 3

“Colin,” you hiss. “There’s too many people yelling. Can you make them stop?”

“I’m not sure I can do that, but I can make them yell someplace else,” he mutters back. “Just wait here.”

He scampers out of the room, and a few seconds later there is an extremely loud bang.

“Was that the RTN?” somebody exclaims. There is a mass exodus from the room.

“Let’s go somewhere quieter before they all come back,” Mr. Dunworthy says. “Finch, is there a private room where Miss Engle can rest?”

“I’m sure we can come up with something,” Finch says, and leads you to a small room in one of the dormitories.

You are so tired, but there are so many things you want to say to Mr. Dunworthy. Did he know this would happen? Has he lost contemps like this? What happens now?

 

_If you try to tell him about the contemps,[go to chapter 4](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721565).  
If you ask him what will happen now, [go to chapter 8](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721727)._


	4. Chapter 4

“Father Roche thought I was an angel,” you tell Mr. Dunworthy. _Please don’t laugh, or call him foolish. People believed in angels back then._

Mr. Dunworthy looks at you gravely. “Well, were you?”

That’s not the response you expected. “Was I what?”

“Were you an angel?”

You think about that for a while. “I don’t know,” you say finally. You curl up on the bed, with your knees tucked under your chin. You are just so tired and lonely.

“An angel is a ministering spirit sent from God,” Mr. Dunworthy says. “But that doesn’t have to mean that they are a supernatural creature sent directly from heaven. If God uses the net or individual humans to accomplish his purposes, who’s to say what was accomplished is less for not involving lightning and a voice from the sky? You made a difference in the lives of the people you visited, and if they call you an angel, you can’t argue with that.”

Maybe he does understand. He is a historian as well, of course; you shouldn’t have doubted. Perhaps he’s seen the same things you have, although you hope not.

“Sir, you need to receive further medical attention as soon as possible,” the other man says.

“Just a moment,” Mr. Dunworthy replies. “Kivrin, you can take as long as you need. You can rest here, or you can go home. I hope you will continue to make a difference as a historian just as you did in these past weeks, but whatever you need to do, we will understand.” He leans heavily against the wall. “You’re right, Finch, I’d better go back to hospital.”

You try to think of something to say, to reassure him as he has reassured you, but you’re so tired and it’s hard to think, and then they’ve gone and you’re all alone.

But not alone, because there are people in this time who care about you just as you care about the people in the time you just left. Mr. Dunworthy obviously cares, and probably Colin as well (or maybe he was just excited to be riding a stallion in the Middle Ages; you don’t know him well enough yet to be sure).

You will take time to grieve. Time to remember. Time to determine what to do next. But first you can sleep, because Mr. Dunworthy has given you hope.

 

_THE END_


	5. Chapter 5

You lay down on the bed and fall asleep nearly instantly. You sleep for a long time, dreaming of the ones you’ve lost. Sometimes you wake up partway and then fall back asleep, back to the dreams.

Rosemund is there sometimes, and Agnes, both of them so small and helpless. Father Roche is the only one who speaks in your dreams; he asks you why you didn’t save him, and why God would send an angel if you weren’t going to do anything, and your dream-self just stands there, crying, and cannot respond.

When you finally wake to full awareness, you realize that you aren’t in the same room in which you fell asleep. It looks like a hospital room. Light is streaming in through the windows.

“What day is it?” you ask a nurse passing by.

“Oh, Miss Engle, you’re awake,” the nurse says. She hands you a paper cup with a few tablets in it. “Here’s a sedative, to help you sleep.”

“What day is it?” you repeat.

“January twenty-third,” she says. “You’ve been asleep for a little over a week, but you’re going to be fine. Just rest some more, everything’s going to be all right.”

 _Everything is not all right_ , you think, as you stare at the pills in your hand.

 

_If you take the sedative,[go to chapter 9](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721745).  
If you pretend to take it but slip out of bed once the nurse leaves, [go to chapter 6](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721661)._


	6. Chapter 6

You don’t think resting is the solution the nurse claims it is. You accept the pills and pretend to be busily finding water and getting ready to take them. The nurse wanders off, satisfied.

Once she’s left, you slip out of bed and tiptoe into the hall. The boy Colin is sitting in a chair outside your door, reading a book. Somehow, you’re not as surprised to see him there as you ought to be.

“They wouldn’t let me in, ‘cause you’re a girl and it’s a gender-segregated ward,” he says. “I said if that’s so then they shouldn’t have let the Gallstone read at all the males but they said that’s different. I don’t think it’s different, but then I suppose it wouldn’t be fair to all the women to have her read twice as much at them so I didn’t argue.”

You hope he didn’t say anything important, because you didn’t catch any of that. “Where’s Mr. Dunworthy?” you whisper.

“He’s in hospital like you,” he says. “He gave himself a relapse going back for you while he was still sick. I’ll take you to him. No, not that door, we’ll run into the Gallstone. This way.”

Shouldn’t a gallstone have been immediately disposed of as medical waste? Why is this hospital leaving them about to be run into? You save your questions to ask later, and follow Colin up stairs and through corridors that really don’t look like a random 12-year-old should have access to them. Once, he drags you into a convenient storage closet where you both wait with bated for someone (a nurse? a gallstone?) to pass by.

“This is his room,” Colin says finally. “I have to get back to your room so the nurse doesn’t realize you’re gone.” He darts off before you’ve scarcely realized he’s gone yourself.

 

_[Go to chapter 7](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5507825/chapters/12721691)._


	7. Chapter 7

“Kivrin!” Mr. Dunworthy exclaims when you slip into the room. “You’re awake! I’m so glad.” He looks wan, but truly happy to see you.

“Thank you for coming for me,” you say. That’s what you should have said before, when you couldn’t figure out what to say. It’s the most important thing, after all.

“I couldn’t just leave you behind,” he says. “I’ll never abandon any of my historians.”

“Nothing kept you from caring,” you murmur. “Neither death nor life nor things to come.”

“Nor height nor depth nor any other creature,” he agrees. “Kivrin, you are welcome to resume your studies whenever you like, but if you need to take a while to rest first that is completely understandable. From what the doctors have been willing to tell me and from what I’ve learned from my young spy, they want to keep you here for a while longer, but I’m not sure that’s what’s best for you.”

“I think I’ll go stay with my parents,” you say. “They have a farm; it’s nice there.” It’s less sterile and more like where you’ve been than this white hospital. Maybe that’s not a good idea, going somewhere that may remind you of the people you’ve lost…but memories are a good thing. You don’t want to forget Father Roche, Rosemund, Agnes, and the rest. You want them to live on in your memories. “I’ll write about them,” you say. “They deserve to be remembered.”

“That’s good,” Mr. Dunworthy says. “Send it to me when you’re done, if you like.”

Colin rushes in. “The nurse has noticed you’ve gone! Quick, this is the first place she’ll look!”

“Colin, help Miss Engle get where she wants to go,” Mr. Dunworthy says.

You wave farewell as Colin hustles you out the door. You have a place to go and a task to do, and something else more nebulous, a feeling in your heart. It feels like hope.

 

_THE END_


	8. Chapter 8

“What will happen now?” you ask. “What if I don’t want to be a historian any more?”

“Oh, Kivrin,” Mr. Dunworthy says. He sits down heavily in the room’s only chair. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to. You can take a leave of absence from school for as long as you need, or even leave completely if that’s what you want. But please know that what has happened makes you the sort of historian that we truly need. Someone with your empathy and strength will understand their experiences in ways that a historian who doesn’t care could not.”

The entire idea of being a historian, caring or not, seems repugnant to you right now. You think that maybe you’ll go stay with your parents for a while. And maybe you won’t come back. You just want to get as far away from this place and everyone who was involved in sending you to that place of death without giving you any means to help.

If being a historian means watching your friends die, you're not sure you want any part in it.

 

_THE END_


	9. Chapter 9

You don’t want to argue with medical authority, so you take the pills. The dark exhaustion seizes you again almost at once, and you lie back down in the bed, wondering which of your lost friends you will see first.

“You called me a cutthroat,” Father Roche says out of the darkness. “No angel of light would impugn God’s servants.”

“You didn’t let me finish my apple,” Rosemund calls.

“Mr. Dunworthy, help me,” you want to call, but your throat closes up and you can’t speak. There is only darkness.

 

_THE END_


End file.
